Daisy Distribution goes on One Net drive

Daisy Distribution is on a drive to promote Vodafone’s One Net solution with seven of its top partners getting the green light to offer the full suite of One Net services to their customers from this month (July).

The move follows its recent takeover of MoCo and is part of Daisy Distribution’s wider plans to expand its unified comms services to partners. It closely follows the distributor’s move to promote Microsoft Office 365, which saw the same seven partners accredited to deliver the service last month.

Daisy Distribution, which connects to EE, Vodafone and O2, wants more of its 700-plus partners to become accredited to offer One Net and Microsoft Office 365 this year. Speaking to Mobile, MD Dave McGinn said: ‘We already offer Vodafone One Net Express and are looking at accrediting some of our partners to enable them to offer the full suite of One Net services. Those seven partners will be up and running with One Net in July and we are hoping to roll out that and Office 365 to more partners this year.’

The company is also on a recruitment spree. It is taking on a number of BDMs to strengthen partner support and is on the hunt for an O2 specialist to join its network team. McGinn said Daisy Distribution was keen to grow its partner base, which has around 350 fully active partners. He added: ‘We are looking at how to grow the business, whether that is by taking on more partners or by helping existing partners who want to grow - and through showing our partners how to become more innovative.’

Daisy Distribution is also on a mission to grow its IT reseller base. McGinn said: ‘It is a massive marketplace and not everyone in IT gets mobile. So our network specialists, who are generally from the networks, play an important role in helping new IT entrants in the market as well as our partners in general.’

Last month, the distributor bought O2 partner MoCo and McGinn said the business was preparing to carry out ‘an operational due diligence’ on its latest buy. He added: ‘Over the next four to six weeks we will see where we can gain extra synergies and consider whether we will keep the MoCo brand or absorb it into the Daisy brand.’

Asked if redundancies were on the cards at MoCo, McGinn said: ‘Whether we still end up with the amount of people that are there now depends on whether some staff decide they don’t want to be part of a bigger enterprise, but certainly our intention is not to cannibalise MoCo but to help it grow. We want to invest in the business.’

McGinn said Daisy chose to acquire MoCo because it had ‘the right synergies’ with its ARPU, CSI and churn rates ‘all delivering the right metrics’. He added: ‘It has good, loyal, quality partners and good staff in the business.’

McGinn said MoCo MD Ian Robinson will remain in place, becoming part of Daisy’s senior management team. ‘We hope to draw from his strengths and experience in the business for a long time to come,’ he added.